On the heels of Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai's newly awarded Nobel Peace Prize, her 2003 book, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (Lantern Books), will be republished next month in paperback, hitting stores the week of November 22.
Her win sent five-year-old Lantern Books scurrying to reprint 5,000 copies of the activist manual and inspirational account of a group of women who planted more than 20 million trees throughout East Africa as part of the Green Belt Movement that Maathai founded.
Lantern publisher Martin Rowe expects Maathai, who lives in Nairobi, to tour the U.S. immediately following the December 10 Nobel ceremony in Norway. Her daughter Wanjira recently turned an October 17 speech at San Francisco's Bioneers Conference into an impromptu book signing for the first edition of the book, which had a 2,000-copy printing.
The new edition will include the Nobel citation, a new foreword by Maathai and an interview conducted earlier this year by WorldWatch magazine on Maathai's new role and responsibilities in the Kenyan government as assistant secretary for environment, wildlife and natural resources.
In response to a flurry of orders from chain and independent bookstores and wholesalers, Rowe said, "We are delighted, especially since this little treasure of a book was underappreciated when first released."
